Island In The Sun

When you’re on a holiday
You can’t find the words to say
All the things that come to you
And I wanna feel it too

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

hip hip
hip hip

When you’re on a golden sea
You don’t need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

We’ll run away together
We’ll spend some time forever
We’ll never feel bad anymore

hip hip
hip hip
hip hip

I recently love this song so much. And I keep playing it on and on like I am never bored :D. And sometimes I dance too, with the clumsiest style, I have. Haha, secret revealed!

This song attracts me to one kind of feeling, FREEDOM! Yeah, how I love that word. Something I always find when I am traveling to a new place. Traveling has become the greatest escape of myself. My routine works allow me to become stressful and depressed. So, whenever I get the chance to runaway from the work, I'll do that with my pleasure. Indeed there is a good effect of it. I have a gastritis problem. It is getting worse when I am on a level of stress. But I am wondering why whenever I am on a holiday, I never feel this problem. It's like disappearing from me. May be it's because of the psychological effect that creates this health problem. So, I promise to myself that I have to keep "escaping" regularly to heal myself. It is the joy I have, when I am visiting new places. New spirit I have to face other bulk of works ahead. And again, this song brings me to think of the places over there, which are awaiting me to come......

Me and my water bottle

Since college I am thrilled by the idea of saving environment. I joined debate and the motion that captured my most attention is environment. I like the idea of saving the world from global warming by many kind of ways, such as reducing plastics, minimizing, the use of cars, and even paying countries which can reduce carbons. It feels like we can become heroes on earth if we can do little things to save the world from global destruction. This whole idea affects me so much even after I go to work. I read an article saying that we should watch out our plastic use in our daily use. Plastic is the element that is very difficult to degrade. We should minimize the usage of it. There are three simple ways to do that, which people do not seem to care. First, burn the plastic garbage. Second, avoid using plastic bag for shopping. Third, minimize the buying of bottles of mineral water. I am interested on the third idea. This is true indeed. Don’t you know that mineral water that we buy is just the same as tap water? I mean it is coming from recycling. So, no point that it is purer. In addition, we can save our money from it. All we need to do is buying a gallon of mineral water and pour it in our own bottle for our daily activity. It is much cheaper to compare.

So, I implement this simple idea. I bring a water bottle for my everyday’s routine. I bring it to office, to gym, to restaurant (so I don’t order water anymore) or even when I am traveling. Sometimes, the water wets my bag. Therefore, I buy the more expensive water bottle from that one famous brand. It is safe now, no water is pouring in my bag. The thing is, I am a forgetful person. Once I take my water bottle out of my bag, I sometimes forget to take it back in my bag. It happened that I left my water bottle in a cab in Singapore! I realized it when I got down. I felt bad, but hey, my bottle is now staying in Singapore! :D. Then I had the other one, I tried to keep it very well now. But the incident happened again. When I ate noodles at one stall, I left it. I remembered it in the morning. Luckily the stall is near my boarding house. And thanks God, when I came back, they still keep it. It was like I found my lost treasure. Okay, it’s exaggerated! Then it happened when I was at my friend’s house. We ate bakso in one stall, and I left it there too. I knew it was missing when I was on the bus. I texted my friend to come back there and save the bottle for me. Thanks God, she is my best friend. She kept the bottle! It was a funny little experiences indeed. But now I can say, I cannot live without my water bottle. There’s something missing when I do not bring it. This has become a part of me. Just like if you cannot go without Ipod, MP4, or even blackberry. It is not me, without my water bottle :D

J-Town

Yesterday I had a chat with someone in Facebook. I did not really know who he was actually. The friendship just came from mutual friends without I knew in person. He asked me where I live. I said I live in Jakarta. Then he told me that he has never been to Jakarta. I was kinda amazed. Like, seriously? I am not wondering if Indonesian says that he or she never goes to Bali. But Jakarta? Even an old women or men in my village have ever been to Jakarta. For the reason of working, visiting families, or even just sightseeing. May be the exception is for people outside Java. But my friend is coming from Central Java! It's like just with one touch you can arrive in Jakarta.

This is a common sense that Jakarta is a place for finding fortune. I once rejected the idea of working in this city, as a reason of the crowd, the traffic jam, the hard people, and many more. But when I graduated I faced the facts that all job scope were provided here. So, I finally moved into the town. Indonesians have love and hate relationship with this city. In a way they love the city, because they can pursue their dreams, earn a living, and become a well-being/ well-acknowledged person if they want to. There are also so many amusement places, malls, and shopping centers. It is true that consumerism is growing well here. The hate relationship is that indeed many people are aware that this city is the most inconvenient city compared to other cities I had ever visited. Almost no free space here. People fill in every blank space of the city. The result is too much of disturbance, annoyance, and inconvenience. It needs a strong heart to stay in the vibe of the city. However, this is the result of centralized government. In which there is a very little room for development for other regions in the country. So, you'll see people keep coming and coming to this town.........

The Reviving Bromo

Ever since college, I was having a thought that I should visit one wonder of East Java, which is Mount Bromo. I was very jealous when my dad told me that he had traveled to this mount. Moreover, every travel show on TV keeps telling that Bromo is so beautiful, especially the part when you hunt for  sunrise. That view is amazing.

Therefore, last year, I and my friends planned a trip to Surabaya, including Bromo. It was very luck indeed that we got cheap tickets of Mandala Air. Dude, it’s only Rp. 38.000,- return ticket from  Jakarta to Surabaya. It felt like finding a precious treasure. However, we got really shocked when one month before our departure, it was announced that Mandala Air was grounded. No more operation of this airline was allowed until they solved their internal problems. Sadly, we chose other alternatives of transportation to Surabaya. Because we expected a low budget travel, we finally chose to go to Surabaya by train, economy class. We got in Kertajaya with the ticket price of only Rp. 43.500,--. It was our first experience going by economy class train. The journey took 15 hours. We really could not imagine how we could bear with this long journey. The economy class train had no fan inside. The air was only coming in from the window. Seating position is 3-2, leaving a very small aisle space. The passengers were very crowded. They sat on the aisle and even some of them used the toilet to sit or even sleep! Disgusting indeed. It was very very hot in the train. I really could not sleep at all. There were some cockroaches passing on our seats so we have to kill them. Moreover, I was very disturbed with one stalker guy who kept sitting next to me and stared at me all the time. It was so not comfortable. And I promised I would never have this kind of transportation again for a long journey. Later we decided to book flight tickets back to Jakarta.

We were very happy when finally we arrived at Pasar Turi train station. We were picked up by our best friends whom we stay with there. In the afternoon we began our trip to Bromo. Bromo is located on the north part of Surabaya. It is in Probolinggo Regency area. It took around 3-4 hours to get there.  We arrived there in the evening and we went directly to Cemoro Lawang. Cemoro Lawang is top location on Bromo. It is near Penanjakan II. The trip to the top was pumping our adrenaline. We just realized that there were not many lighting along the way there. There were also fewer borders between the road and deep ravine. It needed extra carefulness to pass the road. We prayed to be safe to top. My God, none of us are married yet!

We do understand that since 21 December 2010, Mount Bromo keeps erupting. When we arrived in Cemoro Lawang, on the right side of our home stay, we saw the black smoke coming from Bromo crater. There was also thundering sound we heard at night. It was scary indeed, but the local people there told us that this place was safe. There was none evacuated from Ngadisari village, the nearest village from top of Bromo. We stayed all night hearing the thundering sound, or normally called tremor. The temperature there was very low. It was only 2-10 degree Celcius. So cold that when we washed our hands or feet, it felt like frozen. The outfits that must be used were gloves, hat, sweater, scarf, socks, and thick jacket.

4.30 AM, we were waken up by our guide. It was the time to hunt for the sunrise. We went by jeep to Penanjakan II. There were two places to see the sunrise, Penanjakan I and Penanjakan II. Since eruption, Penanjakan I is closed, because the location is really near with Bromo crater. People are only allowed to visit Penanjakan II. Climbing up Penanjakan II was a very hard struggle. The distance is approximately 2 km. We had to struggle the exhaustion and the cold. The local people there kept offering us to rent their horses. From their first offering of Rp. 100.000,- return till Rp. 10.000,-- return, when we almost on top. I refused it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could go up without any help. I had done treadmill for 3 times a week with elevation 13 for preparing this. I could not fail it. And yes, finally I reached the top of Penanjakan II. It was my happiest moment ever for being able to accomplish my own dream. Bromo and Semeru were standing there beautifully. We could also see the sea of sands surrounds them. It was like when these mounts were created, God took some sands, poured it into two bowls, and put them together perfectly side by side. The result was the perfect and unique landscape. There were many people on the top, most of them were foreigners. They also would like to witness the sunrise itself. Unfortunately the sunrise was not very clear to see, because of the smoke from Bromo crater.  Never mind, we still take many pictures there with the background of Bromo. It is an Indonesian’s habit, being narcist. 

The Bromo packages included sightseeing around Bromo. We were taken to Pasir Berbisik (Whispering Sands), Savannah or usually called Bukit Teletubbies (Teletubbies Hill), and Ranupani Lake. The trip could only be taken by motorcycle, because the access was difficult. Our guide gave us masker to prevent us from the ashes and smokes. Our first destination was Pasir Berbisik. All we could see was a large view of sands. It was astonishing. If Egypt has Sahara desert, we have this. This place is well known for many film or video clip shoot. Pasir Berbisik itself is a name of one movie casted by Dian Sastro, a famous Indonesian female artist, taking this location as the set. Because of the popularity of the movie, people named the place after the movie. Bromo is a unique mount. If other mount is surrounded by forests and waterfall, it has sands and savannah. We did not see any groups of high trees there. It was just bushes and grasses. The savannah was wonderful. We could see many local people hunted for grasses for their animals. After eruption the savannah is less green. It was known as Teletubbies Hill because it was once very green. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Lala, and Pooh on kids’ TV series are leaving on a very green green hill. So, people was once compared this hill with these kids’ idols’ hill. 

Moving up, we visited other part of Bromo, which is Ranupani area. This area was less affected by Bromo eruption. The farm land was still green. Still we could see many local people take care of their plants. We then arrived at Ranupani Lake. It was a quiet lake. The lake was also still very clean. No rubbish seen there. It was still virgin resort and I hoped it could be preserved as it is but with a little improvement on facilities, such as toilet. The view is breathtaking too with the background of Mount Bromo. If you had ever seen Lake House or The Notebook movie, it was also the same. The difference is there was no canoe to cross the lake. I would be much good if there was canoe rent available. 

This adventure that I’d take was not cheap but was very satisfying. This was the greatest adventure I’d ever done in my life. Going up to the top beating the cold and exhaustion, struggling with smoke and ashes just to get to the sea of sands, and visiting a very quiet and beautiful lake, is a mixture of adventure to find the beauty of earth. Yes, Bromo is reviving but is worth to see. 

Don't tell me how educated you are tell me how much you have traveled

Let's wander and get lost!

Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken. Traveling to some places have become my excitement. If some people use up money for buying gadgets, investment, and etc, I don't mind spending money for visiting new places. New places mean new experience, new adventure, and it simply lengthens my vision and conversation. I love the idea of how people find some new spirits and energy when they travel. Therefore this is the first idea this blog's created. To capture some memories I'd have while traveling. To share my spirit and excitement after I manage to travel. There will be so much experience written here. Guess what it will be such a challenge for me also for pointing out some more destinations just to fill out this blog. So, let's get this blog started!

What am I doing here?” – Arthur Rimbaud, writing home from Ethiopia